Born and raised in Tulsa, Oklahoma. Tyrance Billingsley II knows the history of Black Wall Street and is looking to create a rebirth under his platform, Black Tech Street. Billingsley created Black Tech Street to start a movement that engages Black people across the world to embrace the tech industry, build wealth and impact the world.
Billingsley spoke with rolling out about Black Tech Street and tips he would give to aspiring founders.
Tell us about Black Tech Street.
Black Tech Street was founded on a question and three epiphanies. One, the work of Black Wall Street needed to be supported and not destroyed. When I thought about the level of tenacity that it took for these entrepreneurs to build these incredible businesses during Jim Crow, that smashing through walls and out-of-the-box thinking reminded me a lot of the tech industry. That eventually led me to this three-pronged epiphany. First, tech is one of the only industries you can build intergenerational wealth in 7 to 10 years through a successful company exit. Two, tech is the core medium through which all global innovation takes place consistently. Three, by the year 2030, there are projected to be as many as 4.3 million high-paying vacant tech jobs through a tech talent shortage. When we put these three things together, we not only saw an incredible wealth-building opportunity for Black people, but we also saw the Black Wall Street vision pushed to a new horizon.
What advice would you offer to aspiring tech founders looking to make a positive impact in their communities?
Hold on to your why, make sure you’re wise and about money and it’s not just selfish. It just isn’t about money. Be beyond that. That’s more of a personal alignment kind of situation.
In terms of objective success, you got to get out there. You can’t be afraid of failure. The most successful people I know have failed the most. Most people might think that’s [a] cliche, but a lot of entrepreneurs are successful and move with the confidence that they do, not because they have some way to be sure that they won’t fail, but because they’ve gotten comfortable with failure in a way that says they’re not afraid of it. If we fail, it’s not the end of the world — and it’s probably going to teach us something we can use to get where we want it to go or even further. Your attitude toward failure is everything: work ethic, resilience and attitude toward failure.
